A Tropical Flour: Manioc in the Afro-Brazilian World, 1500-1800

This research follows the movement of the American tropical root crop manioc [Manihot esulenta] throughout the Afro-Portuguese world between ca. 1500 to ca.1800. In addition to tracing the spatial movement of the plant, this thesis will also show how manioc was culturally redefined as an African crop and how this effected its reception and meaning upon returning to the New World from Africa. In tracking the geographical diffusion of the plant from the Americas to Africa, this research relies upon primary sources on the exploration of Brazil and Africa by European travelers and accounts of the early era of the slave trade, a dynamic system which allowed for the diffusion of plants, such as manioc, throughout the Atlantic basin. The second part of the research combines primary accounts speaking of manioc’s importance to African populations, both free and enslaved, in the New World and secondary literature on the importance of food plants and cuisine in the later formation of Latin American and Caribbean identities. In following the spatial movement of the root and examining how the African associations attached to manioc were repeatedly renegotiated and redefined, this research shows the importance that food crops, and the cuisines derived therefrom, have played in the development of individual and national identities throughout the Atlantic world.Latin American StudiesMastersUniversity of New Mexico. Dept. of Latin American StudiesDuvall, ChrisBieber, JudyOakdale, Suzann